Forget Me Not (13 page)

She apparently thought she was already in bed because she rolled over. If he hadn't caught her beneath the arms, she would have tumbled off the stool. Now her spine was to the counter, her back arched with breasts thrust forward. Though she still wore his shirt, there was no denying the enticing curves. Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at him.

“Time to get up already?” she mumbled in a sleep-silky voice.

“No.”

“Then what are you doing in my room again?”

“You're in the kitchen.”

She turned her head a little, but from the position they were in, she couldn't view the room. From his perspective, she was nearly eye-level with the buckle of his belt and the fly of his pants.

The semidarkness couldn't hide the flush on her cheeks. She struggled to sit up. He aided her by pulling her upright. Unprepared for the spiral of heat he felt where her gaze had been, he released his hold.

One of his concerns about hiring her had been the boys fawning over her and not keeping their minds on their work. He hadn't included himself in that category, and it surprised him now that he wasn't immune to her.

A slender hand was lifted to her forehead, creased by a frown. “I must have accidentally fallen asleep while reading.”

“Go to bed.” He reached for the clock he'd set on the counter. “Here.”

Her eyes fell on the round clock with its nickel housing and glass dial. Then she took it from him. “Thank you.”

“You know how to operate it?”

A grudging “No” whispered from her.

He pointed to the stem and wide bell on the top. “Every night before you go to bed, twist that a few times. It'll ring at three o'clock.”

“How do I turn it off?”

“You don't. The ringer runs down until it's played out. It should chime for a short minute.”

“Oh.”

A thin silence hovered over the room, broken only by the steady
tick-tick-tick
of the alarm clock.

J.D. folded his arms across his chest, trying to think of something worthwhile to say before leaving. He didn't talk to many women. There were two chippies at Walkingbars who knew him intimately, but beyond that no woman had ever caught his attention. He had no one to blame but himself for not pursuing a courtship with one of the finer ladies in town. The separation of his parents was always at the back of his mind. His mother had had every right to leave Boots. Most likely, the same thing was in the cards for J.D. if he got entangled with a set of petticoats. Right now, with his many ambitions for the McCall Cattle Company, any kind of involvement that lasted longer than a night didn't fit into the scheme of things.

With her figure once again hidden by the billow of his shirt, J.D. recalled how soft Josephine had felt when he'd helped her sit up. “You better turn in. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.”

“I wanted to wash out my blouse.”

“I think it's done for.”

She forlornly gazed at the lump of mottled fabric in the dry sink. “I think you're right.”

Unfolding his arms, he ran his rough fingertip down the length of her nose to its sunburned tip. He wasn't an affectionate man, so he didn't know where the idea had come from to touch her intimately without any reason other than he wanted to. “And it looks like the brim of that fancy hat of yours isn't any good, either.”

Her flush deepened to crimson as her eyes lowered. His gaze was fixed on the fullness of her mouth when she spoke softly. “The Dauvray wasn't made for wagon cleaning.”

“I reckon it wasn't.” Before he did something he'd regret, J.D. backed away and tucked the flats of his big hands into the slashes of his pockets. “See you in the morning.”

Then he left for his room, feeling strangely as if he were headed in the wrong direction.

7

T
he alarm scared Josephine to death when it went off at a dark hour. It seemed the bell rang for an interminable length of time before the peal finally petered out and at last ceased. By then, her eyes were wide open and her pulse still tripped from the start she'd had by waking to such a racket.

Standing in her underwear, she splashed water on her face and arms and wiped a cloth over her upper body. She dressed quietly in the clothes she'd worn the day before. Her blouse was no longer wearable. She wondered what she was to do clothing-wise for the next couple of weeks, but she'd never approach J.D. and ask him for another shirt and pants.

After plaiting her hair and pinning the heavy coil up, she'd gone into the kitchen and turned up a lantern while fighting off her lingering drowsiness.

She lit the stove and began her day with the first item on her list. Coffee. The only recipe she could use was the one in the cookbook. She doubled the amount of beans, this time looking in the section that described the grinder; she found one in the larder. Once the coffee was on, she made the oatmeal.

An hour later, she set the thick and sticky mush on the table with canned milk and sugar.

The cowboys had barely sat down before they were up and off again. She speculated everybody's mind was on the cows that had been bawling since the fringes of dawn had approached. J.D. came and went as quickly as the others.

She was elbow-deep in dishwater when he entered the kitchen with a set of clothes folded over his arm, as well as a hat and a pair of boots.

“You'll never last in those shoes and that hat. You'll need these.” He set them down on the counter and left before she could thank him.

She dried off her hands and looked at the hat. It was broad-brimmed, just like the type J.D. wore. Picking it up, she examined the tooled leather and the inside rim where a stain of sweat made it appear well used. For some reason, she was compelled to sniff the brim. It smelled like J.D. She brought the bundle to her room, where she tried the hat on.

Gazing at her reflection in the small mirror, she almost had to laugh. The hat put her eyes in shadow, making her look like a true cow woman. The kind she'd read about in the Beadle's.

“Howdy, Pearl. Nice hat you've got there,” she said to her reflection.

“Why, thank you, Rawhide,” Josephine replied to herself.

She examined the boots. They hadn't belonged to J.D. They were far too small in size. The burnt-brown leather was scarred, and the heels had seen a good number of days. She sat on the edge of her bed and unlaced her old shoes to try on the boots. She thought surely they were the wrong size because her foot wouldn't fit. But after pulling and wiggling, she was able to stand up and push her heel in. They fit perfectly.

She took a test walk after both boots were on. She felt different in them. As if she could walk through anything and it didn't matter if it was mud or horse droppings. Boots were made to get messy, unlike her
smart leather shoes that she'd had to worry about the luster of the grain and always mind her step.

Josephine had wanted to thank J.D. before they left, but by the time she finished in the kitchen, packed away the cookbook and alarm clock in her valise, and carried her wicker case outside, she knew that getting close to him would be impossible.

The yard fairly swam with movement. The wagon had been hitched up to a team of four mules. Boots sat on the bench seat, and One-Eyed Hazel made a check of the straps that held the water barrels in place, while the dogs darted past with high-pitched barks and wagging tails.

Hazel approached and took her valise as she wandered toward the front of the wagon to search for J.D.

Knowing that her thanks would have to wait, Josephine lowered her hand as Rio Cibolo rode up to her on a glossy roan. A string of tin cups and rawhide hobbles swung from the horse's long neck. “Morning, ma'am. Mighty fine breakfast you served up this morning.” Then he winked at her.

She knew he had to be jesting.

“You'd best get in the wagon, Miss Josephine,” Rio said. “We're moving them out.” He leaned forward and held a hand out to her so she could step up into the high bed.

She took his offered grasp, automatically going to clutch her skirts but coming up short. Leveling her boot onto one of the wheel spokes, she pushed off the ground and situated herself on the spring seat that dipped when she sat down. She crossed her ankles and brought her feet back, only to have them hit a box that had been stored beneath her.

“That's where the boys keep their hobbles and other stuff,” Boots blustered, his elbows resting on his spread knees. “I don't know what else they've got in there, 'cept that J.D. told me I can't throw anything overboard.”

When she made no comment, he added, “If something
bothers me, I've been known to toss it over the side.”

Meshing her hands together, she pondered Boots's implication that if she annoyed him he'd get rid of her.

Boots shifted in his seat, adjusting his belt. It was then that she noticed that he wore two belts. The second belonged to a holster, in which a very big and lethal gun was strapped to his left hip.

“Are you sure we'll need that?” she asked, not comfortable with a revolver beside her. “We're traveling in a group. No one would dare rob us.”

“Danger is never where you think,” Boots said simply. Then he fired back with, “What's the matter? Y'all don't think I can hit anything?”

Before she could reply, he withdrew the cumbersome gun by holding its butt in his shaking hand. “I could shoot the hat off of J.D. if I had a mind to.” He aimed the gun at J.D.'s head as he rode toward them.

“Boots, put the goddamn Remington back in your holster,” J.D. hollered, spurring his horse into a prance, its hooves kicking up flecks of dirt. He reined in next to the wagon. “You're liable to shoot me, you old son-of-a-bitch.”

“I don't know how I could,” Boots snorted. “Hazel wouldn't give me the bullets for it. Said y'all told him not to.”

“Damn right.”

“Then what good's the gun to me if it don't work?” To prove his point, Boots centered the tip of the barrel on the tabby cat rubbing up against a porch post. He curled his knobby finger over the trigger and squeezed.
Click.
The mechanism gave off a dry, hollow note. “Nothing. Deader than a beaver hat.”

Click. Click. Click.

“And like to stay that way,” J.D. replied, his reins tight in his fist to keep the horse from dancing. For the first time, he looked at Josephine. She suddenly felt self-conscious wearing his hat and clothes, as if she
needed his approval to be in them. He gave her a slight nod, and she opened her mouth to thank him, but he spoke first—in such a low tone that she had to tilt her head extremely close to his in order to hear him.

“In the back of this wagon in a box marked horseshoes is a loaded gun. If for some reason you two run into trouble, you give it to Boots. He'll know how to use it.”

She was barely able to meet J.D.'s eyes when he pulled away and spoke in a loud voice. “Miss Whittaker, you watch this old man and make sure he doesn't throw anything off the wagon. If something rattles in back, don't let him give you the reins so he can go investigate. He once tossed a crate of shoeing jewelry because he didn't like the sound the nails and irons were making.”

“Annoyed the hell out of me,” Boots muttered under his breath. “And y'all think I'm deaf.”

“You're deaf when you want to be.” Having said the final word, J.D. turned his horse around before Josephine could speak with him.

Boots swore a string of spicy words as he shoved the gun back into its holster. Josephine kept her gaze forward. She was anxious to be on their way and see how the cowboys would maneuver everything.

J.D. ran his impatient horse out a ways down the center of the road leading to the end of the corral. Josephine watched him in fascination as he withdrew his hat and pointed it at arm's length before him as if to signal the direction. The cowboy behind him and two others at their flanks let out a whoop.